DMCRT one-shots
by Fantasy Boudicca
Summary: A series of one-shots set either just after or during DMCRT. I got sick of having to constantly create a new story every time I wanted to post a one-shot, so I decided to collect them here. Rated T for swearing and mentions of death, murder, etc. in one or two chapters, but most should be K plus. Should read Dame Matilda Chase of the Round Table first to get it, my other story.
1. Matilda is dead Lancelot's POV

One shot on Lancelot's POV when Matilda is executed

_Lancelot's castle, France_

Matilda was dead. She was dead. She would only return with the rest of the deceased Knights when civilisation itself was in danger.

I looked down at the letter in my hands.

_"Dear Lancelot,_

_If you reading this, you must not blame yourself. My choice was my own, and I fully accept the consequences."_

I must not blame myself? She was eighteen – no, not even eighteen, her birthday hadn't passed yet – seventeen. She had been murdered by the very king she had sworn to serve.

_"No, do not get angry because I 'am just a maiden girl who wished to serve the King'. I was brought up as a member of M9 and I served as a Knight. Death is an occupational hazard, and I willingly took it."_

I shook my head, smiling. Only my insane sister would willingly take death as an occupational hazard.

_"I don't blame you for anything, so you can clear your mind of that._

_Do a few things for me, will you? The first is that you make sure I am forgotten. Please, ensure I am forgotten, no matter how much it pains you to do this. If the future, younger me finds out that I end up dying, there's no way Young Me will return to Camelot, and to not return to Camelot is something I want to avoid."_

Make sure she was forgotten. She knew that if she had known earlier that she would die she would never return to Camelot from her own time, and she didn't want that.

_"The second is that in future, do not tell me anything. You will understand what I mean later."_

Oh yes, I knew what she meant. I had remembered everything from the twenty-first century as soon as I opened the letter.

_"The third, is that you keep an eye on Lauren for me. _

_The last is that you don't blame yourself and/or refuse to serve the King. Just trust me."_

She had told me not to blame myself three times in that letter, and not to refuse to serve the same king who had her executed when she was completely innocent. Only she would ask that, but then again, she had been from the future, and would likely know what would happen if I refused to aid the King in whatever she meant.

_"Sir Lancelot Du Lac, I am proud to have called you my brother and my colleague, but you are still one very big pain at times._

_And I so won that last sparring match._

_Love,_

_Matilda."_

Unwillingly I laughed at the last sentence. We had been duelling just two days before I visited the Queen, and though I managed to disarm her she had gone and tackled me to the ground, then grabbed my dagger from my belt and held it at my throat. The unofficial rules of our duels was that whoever got disarmed first lost, but apparently tackling the other person counted as a kill. We had still been arguing about who won that match when we last saw each other.

Absent-mindedly I looked over at the set of jewellery I had been planning to give her. It had been our mother's once, and she was to receive it on her eighteenth birthday.

Which she would never see.

I felt irrationally angry that I hadn't made her flee Camelot with me, though I knew that once she had made up her mind nothing could change it. I couldn't have prevented her murder, because frankly that was what it was, plain and simple: Murder.

I had to find some way to stop this. Maybe I could outright stop her from becoming a Knight? If she hadn't become a Knight, she wouldn't have any reason to return to Camelot and couldn't be executed. I hated to, but I could act like what she called a jerk if I had to. But I would have to be fast. She had essentially made up her mind completely at the Second Battle of Camlamn, when she gave King Arthur Aegis.

Then again, I needed to have a somewhat valid reason for treating her poorly. Perhaps that time she told Thalia of King Arthur and my brawl? Yes, that would work. It was a flimsy excuse, but it would have to do.

I had to keep this to myself. King Arthur would never believe he would make the mistake of executing her twice, so I had to somehow bully Matilda enough that she wouldn't even _want_ to be a Knight, if only to escape my company, on my own. This way I could save her life and not disobey her wishes.

I had to.


	2. What's in a name?

"Milady, get over here!"

I put down my guitar and headed over to where Lauren was browsing a website named behind the name dot com on her laptop. "Yeah?"

"Guess what your name means."

I looked at the screen. "Strength in battle. Huh."

"And check out your middle name, Elizabeth: My god is abundance. You prayed for _hours_ after every battle, and you still pray. And Peter's: stone. You told me yourself that he was like your rock. Edward means 'Blessed' and 'guard'. GUARD. It's like fate."

"What about 'Lauren'?" I asked.

"I don't know, maybe something like fierce warrior?" Lauren typed in her name. "Or even conquerer?"

"Originally a form of Laurence," I read. My friend clicked on 'Laurence'.

"From Laurentum, which likely derived it's name from laurus, meaning laurel."

I laughed and Lauren hid her face.

**A.N. I had no idea about the meanings of their names when I created the characters. I only found out ****_after_**** the thing was completed. I just named them that because it sounded right.**


	3. How To Be the Only Female Knight

How to survive being the only female Knight of the Round Table by Dame Matilda and Squire Lauren. Co-starring Sir Lancelot!

Step 1: Develop a good sense of humour.

Matilda: This is vital to not going insane. You WILL be pranked by the rest of the Knights. If you are, good for you. It means the Knights count you as one of their own.

Lauren: DO NOT let any of the Knights, especially a certain teenage one, get hold of your armour. You'll have bright pink hair that takes three days to wash out before you know it.

Matilda: It was one time! And besides, you shoved me in the lake later.

Lancelot: As you deserved. You dyed my hair green the day before we were due to be inspected by G... Queen Guinevere. And no, I do not think that it was funny.

Matilda: Aw, but it was fun, Blondie.

Lauren: Oi! You do realize I'm blonde right, Skunk Stripe?!

Lancelot: Why did I agree to this... Separating two wrestling adolescents is bad enough, separating two _female_ wrestling adolescents who are also trained in fighting could have easily been a Labour of Hercules.

Step 2: Wear a light leather vest over your tunic or shirt, a la Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon.

Lauren: You really don't need people staring if you get sweaty enough from training to soak your shirt.

Matilda: Or if you end up chucked into the lake or river. Clothes have a nasty habit of clinging to your body when wet, as I remembered the hard way when I went swimming. Not fun.

Lancelot: I had far too many requests for Matilda's hand that week.

Step 3: By all means, use dirty tricks.

Matilda: In a fight, especially if you're a lot smaller than your opponent, a teenager, or considering this is the Middle Ages we're talking about, female, the unofficial rulebook for most knights states that you have a valid reason to use tricks like a shield with the world's most horrifying face on it, or if you can, kicking your opponent in his soft spot. Or better still, you're a small-sized teenage female Knight, then just about everyone you meet in a fight is fair game.

Lancelot: Do not. Ever. Kick me there again.

Lauren: Did you just say kick me there again?

Matilda: Plus, there're a lot of Knights who will outright refuse to fight if they find out you're a girl before the fight, or will immediately either be horrified that they fought against a lady and vow to do what you ask for who knows how long, or die of shame.

Lancelot: I swear, King Arthur gained a quarter of his knights that way.

Matilda: Does using dirty tricks to get your prat of an older brother's attention count?

Lancelot: Matilda.

Lauren: Yes.

Matilda: In that case, let me tell you a story. Once, a few months after I was knighted, Lauren and I were out riding, close to evening. After a while we got off our horses to walk around.

Lauren: We overheard a bunch of men plotting to storm Camelot and kidnap our (sarcasm mode on) _dear_ (sarcasm mode off) Queen and hold her hostage.

Matilda: Lauren! Anyway, so of course we raced back to tell the Knights. King Arthur was out dealing with some rebels with about half of the Knights, but Lancelot was still around. Being, unfortunately, one of the few Knights I was comfortable with, bar Galahad, but he's still in the monastery, we told him.

Lauren: He was doing some paperwork at the time, though, and he didn't even _acknowledge_ us. You know that half-grunt thing some people do when they're doing something and they know you're talking to them and just want you to shut up and go away? He did that.

Matilda: So I told him I was pregnant.

Lauren: _That_ got his attention.

Matilda: _That_ nearly gave him a heart attack. I'm not doing it again, he's almost fifty! I think I may have subtracted a year or two from his life.

Lancelot: You did. And I am forty-six years old. I am not that old.

Matilda: Sorry.

Lauren: Sorry.

Lancelot: In any case, I heeded their warning and we were able to defend Queen Guinevere.

Step 4: Concealed weapons are very useful.

Matilda: It turns out Athena can turn into a folding fan with a flexible metal ribbon woven into the outer edge. It was hidden by lace on both side, but if used to slice with the correct technique it can go through a tent pole.

Lauren: It's a Korean fighting fan. I learned a bit on how to use it when I was eleven. Anyway, the ribs are made of a very resilient tempered birch wood from the mountainous peninsula of Korea. Those things can deflect a good chunk of bladed weapons, not to mention that since it's Athena, you can swap to a sword in under a second. I have a similar one, just that hers is brown with black lace, and mine is brown with red lace

Matilda: In any case, Lauren and I were often dressed as regular ladies of court, outside of Knight duties, so we always had our fans with us in place of swords. Once, these two men attempted to take Lauren and I hostage during an audience.

Lauren: Didn't work too great. We both had our fans.

Lancelot: To this day I still cannot believe he attempted to do that. What on Earth possessed them to take two young women hostage in a room full of Knights?!

Matilda: We just opened our fans and while Lauren went for the neck of the man holding me, I went for the ribs of the idiot holding her.

Lancelot: Matilda and Lauren managed to throw the men on the ground using some form of martial art called judo.

Lauren: It's a standard M9-er skill. We're expected to be able to throw a man larger than us on the ground if we have to.

Matilda: We let the rest of the Knights handle them while we went to clean our fans.

Matilda, Lauren and Lancelot: And that's it!


End file.
